Race, Identity and Recognition in South African Literature: A Global Reading of Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter

Author(s)	Prof. Manju Srivastava, Dr. Seema Nigam
Country	India
Abstract	South Africa is still considered the most unequal country in the world. South African literature is shaped by the apartheid system that denies recognition to the majority and defines identity through race and ideology. Nadine Gordimer, one of South Africa's most acclaimed writers and Nobel Laureate (1991), consistently writes about the apartheid reality- racism, injustice and liberation. Burger's Daughter(1979) introduces the protagonist as the daughter of Lionel Burger, a communist and anti-apartheid martyr and traces her journey from childhood to adulthood, exploring the trials of a political orphan in a racist society where a private search for Identity is inseparable from the collective struggle for recognition, freedom and justice. The study aims to bring to the fore South African realities along postcolonial issues of race, identity and recognition to contribute to the broader understandings of decolonization, political freedom, growth, in global context.
Keywords	Racism, identity, Apartheid, Postcolonialism , human dignity, decolonization.
Field	Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 4, July-August 2026
Published On	2026-07-31
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i04.84787

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